


Not Exactly Subtle, or, Blindingly Obvious

by alianora



Category: Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-17
Updated: 2010-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-06 10:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alianora/pseuds/alianora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems to be all relatively straightforward.  It's not their fault the rest of the crew seems to be stupid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Jayne was standing in the middle of the shower room, carefully trimming his goatee. He had a collared shirt on, and his nice hat perched on the counter next to him.

Which would have been fine, only he had been in there for almost an hour, and Mal was starting to get right irritable.

"The whores think you're pretty enough," Mal said as he kicked the door the rest of the way open. "Now, get out of here so I can shower."

"Ain't going to see no whores today, Mal." Jayne said, concentrating on the tender skin of his throat. "And you can wait, ain't nobody gonna be running up to sniff you that I know of."

"Hey," Mal said defensively. "Plenty of people wanna take a whiff of me." His towel landed on the bench with a slap. "'Sides, if you ain't getting gussied up for no whore, then where you headed?"

"Got an appointment down at the court house." Jayne raised his eyebrow questioningly at his reflection, then nodded in satisfaction.

"If you got arrested again, you can rot there for all I care," Mal growled. "I ain't bailing you out again."

"Didn't get arrested," Jayne said, plopping his hat down on his head and grinning. "I got an appointment to see somebody about a license."

"What kinda license?" Mal asked.

But Jayne just smirked, and disappeared out the door.

"Hey! Do you even have a license to drive the mule? Or for your guns?" Mal called. "Uh..Jayne?"

\------

"You look very pretty today, _mei mei._" Simon smiled up at his sister from his seat at the table. "Did Kaylee and Inara help you pick out something nice to wear?"

"Yes," River nodded, and held up one foot for inspection. "Shoes are necessary today, and these have heels."

"You look very grown up."

River smiled. A slow, wiser than her years smile. "I am."

Simon nodded ruefully. "I can't stop thinking of you as forever fourteen, you know."

"I know," she said sadly. "It is a common failing among the old and infirm."

"Hey!"

River had to fight her fit of giggles back down. "I cannot tarry," she said formally. "I am expected, and the party cannot begin without me."

Simon blinked. "I didn't know there was a party tonight."

"You aren't invited."

\----------

The next few weeks seemed to be fairly normal.

There were some oddities, but no one thought much about them at the time.

It didn't occur to anyone until much later what some of the strange things might mean.


	2. Not Exactly Subtle, or, Blindingly Obvious

They were such little things, really. And they didn't happen all at once. So, its to be expected that the others would take a while to put the pieces together.

\--------------

One:

"The hell are you doing?" Mal leaned down into the open hatch of Jayne's bunk in amazement.

Jayne shot Mal an annoyed look, and dropped another bag of stuff at the bottom of the ladder with a clink. "Tap dancing," he snarled. "The hell's it look like?"

Mal examined the bags already sitting outside the door. "You cleaning out or something?"

Jayne just grunted, and tossed the bag he was holding practically into the captain's lap.

Mal poked through one of the bags idly, cursing when he knocked it over. "What is all this, anyway?"

"Some of it's gonna go to storage." Jayne's voice was muffled as he shoved himself half under his bed. "Some of it's trash."

"Jayne?" Mal stared at the papers escaping from the overstuffed trash bag. "Uh..this is all your girly mags and nudie pictures." A mostly naked minx straddling a mule smiled up at the captain as he tried to stuff it back under more innocent papers.

"Yep." Jayne wiggled back out from under the bunk, hands full with a large box. "That's all old stuff. I got some new things that are gonna go up on the walls." He paused, a smirk stealing across his lips for a second. "Might even frame 'em."

"Yeah, well," Mal gave up on shoving the girly pictures back where they came from and just covered the whole pile with a bag of empty whiskey bottles. "Just..make sure you clean up all this junk."

"Yeah, yeah."

\---------  
Two:

River was rosy cheeked and cheerful most of the time these days. It was such a nice change from how she was before that Simon ignored the nagging little voice that kept telling him he was missing something obvious.

He complimented her on how healthy she looked one day.

"Thank you, Simon," River said with a smile. "I have been increasing my heart rate with cardiovascular movements. I now understand why others are so fond of the past time. It really gets the blood moving, doesn't it?"

"What kind of exercise are you doing, River? Maybe I should try it."

She began to laugh, trying to smother it under her hand. "I highly recommend you do, Doctor Tam. I'm sure Kaylee would be willing to show you the basics."

\----------  
Three:

The whole crew stared when Jayne walked into the mess for dinner one night.

Kaylee squinted. "Jayne, did you...shave?" Her voice squeaked in disbelief.

"Yep." Jayne didn't even look up as he plopped himself down at the table, elbowing River's drawing pad out of the way of his plate.

River just giggled and swung her feet down from the edge of his chair. "No more Grizzly bear, all stubble and growl."

Jayne flicked a glance at her with a smirk, "I'm still all growl, ma'am."

Simon frowned in confusion. "Don't leer at my sister, please, Jayne." He tapped the edge of his bowl with his chopsticks, studying the mercenary. "So," he asked cautiously, after Kaylee gave him a helpful kick in the shin. "What made you decide to shave?"

"I had a complaint 'bout beard burn."

Kaylee frowned in confusion. "But, Jayne," she protested. "We ain't made landfall in more than a week."

Jayne shrugged. "Was a legitimate complaint, filed and everything."

"Have to follow all the rules," River said solemnly. "Otherwise the contract is void and null."

"Got that right."

Mel squinted at his hired hand. "Since when do you actually understand anything what she says?"

Jayne and River just shrugged.


	3. Not Exactly Subtle, or, Blindingly Obvious

It might have taken a while, but things did eventually start sinking in. Somewhat, anyway.

The fact that River seemed to have given up sleeping in her room completely was a big clue, which her brother didn't realize until he stopped to look in on her late one night. She rolled her eyes when he asked her where she had been going. "I have duties, Simon," she explained patiently. "Must stand watch."

"Duties?"

She nodded and flipped a page in her sketch book. "It's nice to have your own space," she answered vaguely. "Merging lives is difficult."

"...I have no idea what that means."

"I'm not surprised."

\--------------

"What the hell is your problem?" Jayne had gotten annoyed with the sideways looks everyone had been giving him for the better part of a day.

"Nothing," Simon answered wryly. "Only, for some reason, my sister seems to have this odd idea that you two are married."

Jayne blinked. "Is that all?"

"Is that all, he says," Mal snorted. "Don't you think it's a problem that the cute little unhinged girl thinks you're in love with her?"

Jayne snorted this time. "She knows I ain't in love with her." He grabbed a cup of tea and splashed some whiskey in it. "What does love have to do with us getting married?"

Simon inhaled his tea.

\-------------

"Married?! Little one, not to be rude, but what the hell were you thinking?"

River rolled her eyes at the captain and went back to painting her toenails with a borrowed bottle of Inara's polish. "Not your business," she said pointedly. "There are rules and regulations, and there are contracts and 'I do's' and we did."

Mel scrubbed one hand over his face. "Your brother is sitting down in his own medical bay, counting his surgical tools for the seventh time, and I'm worried he's going to come up short a scalpel when he decides to stab the man I pay to shoot people, so would you mind not talking in circles for a spell?"

River sighed and very slowly explained. "Marriage is an institution of contracts and give and take. Went to the chapel, signed the contract, even wore shoes."

"So, it's legal, then?"

"Signed in blood," she agreed absently as she held her foot in the air at an impossible angle to examine her toes. "Do you like the pink better?"

\-------------

Zoe didn't bat an eye when Simon walked directly into her.

"Married?" He demanded, raking a hand through his hair. "How on earth did she get _married_?"

"Excuse you, too," Zoe said dryly. "And I assume she got married the same way most people do. She put on nice clothes, went down in front of a judge and said she wanted to."

Simon slumped against the wall. "But she's not even all _there_." He sputtered for a moment. "Can people on massive anti psychotics even..Is that even _legal_?"

Zoe shrugged. "Drunk people get married all the time," she pointed out. "Matter of fact, the captain got married while he was drunk not too long ago."

"Yes, and this is why I'm concerned." Simon lurched off of the wall to pace. "Marriage hasn't gone over well with the less stable members of the crew, and I think we can both agree that neither of them is stable."

"Well, if it makes you feel better, Jayne ain't tried kissing any of us to knock us unconscious."

"Somehow that fact doesn't help at all." He made a face. "And now all I can think of is Jayne making kissy faces at my sister."

"Now, that's just a downright unpleasant mental image."

"You brought it up."

\--------------

"So, what made you decide to get married?"

"Not just get married," River corrected, "Decided to marry Jayne."

"Very well," Inara shook one sleeve back over her arm as she offered a plate of dainty sandwiches. "How did you decide to marry Jayne?"

River smiled. "He asked me."

"Would you have married anyone who asked you?"

"Don't be silly." River lifted the cup with two fingertips. "Wash and the Captain are already married, and marrying Kaylee isn't legal in most areas."

Inara managed not to react with anything more than a raised eyebrow.

River giggled. "Jayne wanted a companion," she nodded towards the woman opposite her. "Someone to keep him in line and meet his mother and take care of him when he has gotten old."

"And he asked you for those things?"

"That. And sex."

\-------------

Simon and Mal had schemed, planned, and plotted, but nothing had done any good.

Throwing Jayne out of the airlock wouldn't work, because River had been talking to Kaylee, and now the airlock wasn't functioning at all.

Locking River in her room didn't work, because if Jayne didn't break the door down for her, then River would eventually be found wandering the crew quarters, her door still closed and locked.

Jayne was stubbornly silent on how all this had come to happen, only blowing his breath out in exasperation when questioned. "Dammit, Mal, a man's gotta get married some day!"

"But, why _River_?" Simon asked plaintively.

Jayne shrugged. "She smells nice, and she's crazy enough to stand up to my mother when she goes off on a tear about me moving home and giving her grandbabies."

Simon went pale and clutched his chest. "Oh God," he moaned. "My sister might reproduce with the ape man."

"You'll love it, Uncle Doc."

\-------------

"But, River, he says out loud that he don't love you, even a smidge!" Kaylee's eyes were wide with concern. "You can't go getting married to somebody who don't love you."

River shrugged and spun the shuttle's one chair in a circle. "What is love but promises kept?" She asked reasonably. "We came to an agreement and signed our names and River Tam was replaced with River Cobb." She wrinkled her forehead in thought. "Never considered marriage to a man named after corn parts," River mused. "Good thing his middle name is Theodore."

END

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Binding Agreements](https://archiveofourown.org/works/49351) by [alianora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alianora/pseuds/alianora)




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